Baring-Gould’s sources: B-'lgian and Galilean Manyrologies. The festival of S. Alena is celebrated on the Sunday be! ore Midsummer-day; it is entered in Martyrologkt variously on June 17th, i8th, and 19th. Authority:— A Latin life founded on popular tradition.] Alena, the daughter of the lord of Dilbeck in the 7th century, was converted to Christianity by hearing her father’s account of Christian ceremonies which he had witnessed. A priest having built an oratory in a neighbouring forest, at the spot now called Vorst or La Fordt, near Brussels, she went to him to receive instruction, but secretly, for fear of her father. She was baptized, and afterwards went at midnight through the wilderness of trees, to the little chapel to hear matins and assist at mass, returning to her father’s castle before daybreak. When her father discovered her proceedings he was furious, and sent servants to prevent her from going to the chapel. She evaded the watch placed on her in her home, and escaped into the forest, where she S. Botulph* fell into the hands of some rough men, who, in their violent efforts to detain her, broke her arm, and so injured her in the struggle that she died. Then frightened at what they had done, in having gone beyond their orders, the men escaped. The priest, perhaps hearing the cries, came to the spot and found the unfortunate girl. He was unable to restore life, and she was buried near his chapel.1 At the close of the 12th century, the place where her body lay is said to have been discovered by revelation, and her bones were dug up and placed in the crypt of the church of S. Denis at For6t. They are exhibited to the faithful on her festival. A filbert tree is also shown in a walled enclosure adjoining the church, and the story about it is that Alena one day thrust her staff into the ground at the chapel door, and left it there. On the morrow it had budded and rooted itself, and it grew up a stately filbert.